Learning Gap Linked to LEP Instruction

American schools are "failing" students whose second language is
English, according to two researchers tracking the progress of those
students in 16 school districts around the country.

Since 1996, George Mason University researchers Wayne P. Thomas and
Virginia P. Collier, working in collaboration with districts, have
tried to get a handle on what happens to English-language learners as
they move through the education system and enter mainstream classes.
Their federally financed project, among the largest to take a long-term
look at such students, is based on student records from 1982 to
2000.

The researchers presented some of their findings during the annual
meeting of the American Educational Research Association, held here
April 11-14.

By the end of high school, they found, students who started school
knowing little or no English trail far behind native speakers of the
language on achievement tests. They typically score at about the 10th
to 12th percentile on English-language versions of national
standardized tests, such as the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills, the
Stanford Achievement Test-9th Edition, and the TerraNova edition of the
Comprehensive Test of Basic Skills.

Measured in terms of "normal curve equivalents," which are
essentially more evenly spaced percentiles, the gap between the two
groups amounts to about 25 normal curve equivalents. Five normal curve
equivalents translates to about 15 months of schooling, the researchers
said.

"This is a colossal gap," said Mr. Thomas, a professor of research
and evaluation methodology at George Mason in Fairfax, Va. "In each and
every school system we've ever been in, we've never failed to see this
type of thing going on."

The researchers said their findings were essentially a "best-case
scenario," since the study included only foreign-language speakers who
had been in the districts at least five years or who had already been
formally schooled in their home countries.

What Works?

The researchers concluded that some approaches to teaching students
new to English are more effective than others in bridging the
achievement gap. Most promising, they said, were one-way and two-way
developmental bilingual education programs.

Used in about 300 schools nationwide, two-way, or dual-immersion,
programs involve teaching groups of students with limited English in
classes with native English- speakers. Half the instruction is given in
the newcomers' first language; half is in English. The one-way
classrooms use the same approach but do not include native
English-speakers.

When students who were not native English-speakers stay in such
classes for six years, they score on a par with other students by the
end of high school, the researchers found.

The method that the researchers judged least effective at narrowing
the test-score gap—English-as-a- second-language pullout
programs—is the approach most commonly used in schools. In those
programs, students leave their regular classrooms for instruction in
basic English and get no academic lessons in their native languages. In
those settings, the achievement gap barely narrows at all by the end of
secondary school, the research team said.

The districts involved in the study include a mix of urban, rural,
and suburban systems from every region of the country. But only one
district—the Houston Independent School District in
Texas—has officially agreed to allow the researchers to reveal
its role.

The study does, however, include data from California, where a 1998
ballot initiative curtailed bilingual education statewide in favor of
all-English classes for students with limited English proficiency.

"It's not looking pretty at all in California," said Ms. Collier, a
professor of bilingual-multicultural-ESL instruction. The achievement
gap there has widened in the past two years despite rising scores among
English-language learners, she said, because scores for native speakers
have increased faster.

The findings are not likely to end debates over such programs any
time soon, said Kenji Hakuta, who headed a 1997 National Research
Council panel focusing on instruction of LEP students. He said
researchers need more statistical and methodological data to assess the
George Mason researchers' findings.

Mr. Thomas and Ms. Collier promised that data would come in August,
when they turn in their final report to the U.S. Department of
Education's office of educational research and improvement.

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